Digging up the Dead: Bin Laden raid files ‘buried’ by CIA to avoid public scrutiny

The Osama Bin Laden raid documents are under lock and key, as the CIA quietly obtained them from the U.S. State Department, almost ensuring they’ll never see the light of day. It remains to be seen if we will ever know the full details of the largest ‘theatrical’ man-hunt for a fugitive in the modern era.

Understanding the history of Bin Laden leads us to the secrets of 9/11…

We must remember crucial details about Bin Laden’s back ground, below is a quote from Prince Bandar Bin Sultan during an interview on CNN with Larry King on October 1st 2001, shortly after 9/11. Bandar discussed the support that Bin Laden received from America, during the proxy war involving the Mujahadeen and Soviet Russian forces:

This is ironic. In the mid-’80s, if you remember, we and the United — Saudi Arabia and the United States were supporting the Mujahideen to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. He came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists, he said the communists.

Bandar, the director general of the Saudi intelligence Agency, is the face of the Saudi Arabia lobby. It is no secret he has been linked to the CIA. Bandar was doing damage control after 9/11 on Larry King Live, after it was revealed that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens. Looking back, it seems that Bandar may have been given the go ahead to blow Bin Laden’s cover as a CIA asset to deflect Saudi involvement on that dark September day.

Military files detailing the Navy SEAL raid which killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 were removed from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA, in an effort to make the documents harder for the general public to access.

The secret move, ordered by Adm. William McRaven, was mentioned in a draft report by the Pentagon’s inspector general, which was acquired by AP.

McRaven, who oversaw the bin Laden raid, expressed his concerns in the report about possible disclosure of the identities of the SEALs. He ordered that names and photographs associated with Operation Neptune Spear not be released.

“This effort included purging the combatant command’s systems of all records related to the operation and providing these records to another government agency,” the draft report said.

Admiral William McRaven (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images / AFP)

But that sentence was removed from the final version of the document, which was released several weeks ago. Unnamed current and former Defense Department officials confirmed to AP that “another government agency” mentioned in the report was code for the CIA.

McRaven’s spokesman declined to comment on the issue when he was approached by AP. Meanwhile, the CIA explained that the SEALs involved in the bin Laden raid were effectively assigned to work temporarily for the CIA, which has presidential authority to conduct covert operations.

“Documents related to the raid were handled in a manner consistent with the fact that the operation was conducted under the direction of the CIA director (Leon Panetta),” agency spokesman Preston Golson said in an emailed statement.

“Records of a CIA operation such as the (bin Laden) raid, which were created during the conduct of the operation by persons acting under the authority of the CIA Director, are CIA records,” he added.

Golson said that it is “absolutely false” that records were moved to the CIA to avoid the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.

Pakistani children playing near demolition works on the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 / Pakistani security personnel sitting in a cordoned-off street in front of bin Laden’s final hideout in Abbottabad (AFP Photo / Aamir Qureshi)

Under US federal rules, transferring government records from one executive agency to another must be approved in writing by the National Archives and Records Administration. But according to AP, the respective authorities weren’t notified that the bin Laden raid files were being moved.

The Pentagon told AP that it couldn’t find any documents on bin Laden’s killing inside the Defense Department. The response came after the news agency requested to see the documents in 20 separate applications – most of which were submitted in May 2011.

The CIA has special authority to prevent the release of “operational files” in ways that can’t effectively be challenged in federal court, while a judge has the power compel the Pentagon to turn over non-sensitive portions of their military records.

AP expressed concern that the relocation of Operation Neptune Spear files “could represent a new strategy for the US government to shield even its most sensitive activities from public scrutiny.”

Bin Laden, of course, had nothing to do with 9-11 and said so before his death in late 2001.

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Yes, I was just suggesting that understanding Bin Laden’s background will lead the average person to understanding Western backed terror i.e, 9/11, thus exposing the fraudulent War on Terror for what it really is. I could have phrased that slightly different above but I think it is somewhat implied in the next paragraph.